Ask HN: I am addicted to Porn. Help me quit

Besides, depending on how tech savvy you are, content filters may or may not be effective. An unpopular but quite effective one for self control is Pluckeye. It works under linux and windows.

You can also seek an accountability partner.

Also, following the subreddit /r/NoFap might keep you motivated. Here are some videos which motivate me personally : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R-FbmLbpWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx-p9Wr6xg0

Another thing that's helpful is to identify when you have your strong moments and capitalize on those to do more preventative measures. You posting this was one of your strong moments, for example. Make it easier by removing the possibility of accessing porn; if you are an alcoholic, get the liquor out of the house. People have already recommended some good solutions - I'd even go as far as to access your router and put a block on your computer's IP address. (Wife might notice if you put a blanket parental policy on everything) But do these changes when you are feeling strong so it will make it easier when you feel weak/low on willpower.

Sam Harris has an pretty good intro to mindfulness. It's a lot easier to deal with any addiction when you can make that little tiny voice louder. The way addiction thrives is when we lie to ourselves. The harder that is to do, the more resistant we are to addiction. Good luck!

I've not yet "conquered" my porn addiction, but I've realized it may have its roots in repressed anger and unable to deal with anger in a healthy way. So I echo the answer of the other comments that mention emotional displacement as the cause. I think the first step is to realize that you're addicted because subconsciously your mind is looking for relief from some difficult feeling you're unable to confront. This makes it useless to try quit by using "will power". Instead I would look for a good therapist who can help with behavioural addictions and with help and hard work you might be able to overcome it. I'm speaking only from personal experience and of course some of these things may not apply to you. But I hope it helps. Good luck my friend.

If you wish to understand more about emotional displacement, depression and addiction, I found two books particularly enlightening on the subject. One is "The body keeps the score" by Bessel Van Der kolk. The other is "In the realm of hungry ghosts" by Gabor Mate. Highly recommend both. The first is particularly great imo.

1) It's really unfair to go on letting her believe an untruth. She should know the reason you have not been intimate with her. She may even be relieved to know that what she thought was the issue, her getting old which is something that she can't change, wasn't actually the issue and the real issue can be changed. 2) You have been hiding this habit for 15 years, surely this will not be a complete surprise to your wife. 3) The most important reason is that once your wife is aware of your struggle she will be a strong motivation to quit and potentially even a supportive person who you can be vulnerable with (as opposed to strangers on HN).

It might help to picture yourself five years from now. If you don't quit (the trend for the past 15 years) then your relationship with your wife will only have become worse, your wife will continue to believe that she is undesirable, you will continue to have this part of your life that you are scared to share with your family, etc. If you come clean with her then you will (likely) be forced to change and hopefully your relationship is improved and you no longer have this baggage in your life. If she loves you (which it sounds like she does) she will probably be more understanding than you picture in your head.

To share my (religious) experience, I struggled with porn for several years and became extremely frustrated because I felt like I became a slave to the urge, no matter what I tried I couldn't seem to quit. Eventually, in my frustration, I prayed to God and begged for help to break the habit and in that moment I got a calm feeling and with time I felt that my prayer was answered. The addiction didn't go away, but I seemed to find just enough self control/motivation/discipline/whatever to quit cold turkey. I know religion isn't usually a well-received remedy, and it's not required in order to quit porn, this was just my experience.